Injunctions to stop the disclosure of private information that injures reputation: consequential harm and coherence

The rule in Bonnard v Perryman is that an interlocutory injunction will not be granted if a defence might succeed at trial. This article argues that the rule should not apply to privacy claims and should be reconsidered in its own field: defamation law. The principle of claimant choice means that an interlocutory injunction application should be decided on the merit of the claim that is brought, not by characterising certain privacy claims as if they were defamation claims. A critical issue is whether privacy claims should protect against consequential harm to reputation. That issue is best resolved by the idea of coherence in the law about private information. The resolution of that issue will determine whether irreparable harm to reputation may be placed in the scales at the interlocutory injunction hearing of a privacy claim.